Admissions advice from Kevin McMullin

Yesterday’s post inviting families to attend our webinar on highly-selective college admissions generated some questions that showed I may not always be clear that I actually have nothing against the most prestigious colleges, or the idea that a student may want to attend one.

For the record: I—and the rest of our counselors at Collegewise—have nothing against the most selective colleges. We work with students every year who go on to all of those schools and end up blissfully happy. Some of our counselors attended those prestigious colleges, and they wear their alumni garb proudly. Many students have wonderful college experiences at Princeton, Duke, Georgetown, and the rest of the 40 or so colleges that are considered the most selective. We’re equal-opportunity college enthusiasts.

But here’s what we are against:

We’re against the notion that prestigious colleges offer inherently better educations or experiences than the less famous schools. There is no evidence to support that assertion.

We’re against the idea that the only acceptable outcome for an “A” student’s hard work is an admission to a college that denies nearly everyone who applies.

We’re against the belief that “B” and even “C” students can’t enjoy their ride to college, too.

We’re against treating the college admissions process as an escalating arms race, one in which happiness, fulfillment, and sanity are sacrificed in the pursuit of perfect grades, higher test scores, and more impressive activities.

And most importantly, we’re against the idea that a GPA, test score, or admission decision from a particular college is an accurate measure of a student’s worth (or a measure of that student’s parents).

Human nature dictates that for some people, the more difficult something is to get, the more they covet it. It’s the educational equivalent of the exclusive night club—the longer the line outside, the more desperate some people will be to find a way in. But when channeled into college admissions, that desperation to get admitted into a school that turns away nearly everyone ruins the process for a lot of good kids.

I, and the rest of my colleagues at Collegewise, believe that going to college is incredibly important. We believe that students should work hard, treat people right, and take an active interest in their educations. But what those hard-working, good kids do once they’re in college will be much more important than the names of the schools where they do it.

“Stop worrying about getting into that special elite school. Take a deep breath. It will not make as much difference as you think. There are plenty of schools at which you will receive an excellent and well-rounded education. And if you work hard and learn a lot, this will help you on the way to a successful career and life. But, as you start to consider where you will go to school, think about how well you will ‘fit’ with the school. This will make more difference than you imagine in keeping you on track for later success in school and in life!”

It might be easy for a high school student to misinterpret my regular message—and Dr. Schwartz’s words—as, “There’s no need to work hard. Just go to whichever college will accept you.” But that’s certainly not the intent.

I think every student should dream big. You should work hard and go after your goals. You should learn how to dust yourself off and bounce back after you fail. It’s your future, and you shouldn’t expect anybody to care more about it than you do.

But if you’re willing to develop traits like character, work ethic, and curiosity, you don’t need Brown or UCLA or any other prestigious college to deem you worthy of an admission to their school to go make your future.

That brand-name obsession, that belief that good kids who work hard will somehow be at a disadvantage if they don’t attend a school on the top 20 of some arbitrary rankings list, that’s what I reject. I hope that my readers here will, too.

I’ve written before that no matter how disappointed a student may be when a dream college says no, that feeling will be long gone four months later when the student moves into a dorm somewhere else. Students almost always find a way to eventually fall in collegiate love with a school that had the good sense to say, “YES!”

Last week, Breanne in our Irvine, California office received an email from one of her former student’s mothers with a glowing update on college life. The school her daughter is attending was once a distant second to her dream school. But as is often the case, a college that says yes has a wonderful way of turning that disappointment around.

Senior families, if bad admissions news arrives later this spring, remember that the disappointment will be temporary. Treat it like a romantic breakup, a real—but temporary—disappointment that will fade as fast as you are willing to move on to another fish in the collegiate sea. You’ll fall in love with a school that said yes even if it feels like you’ve just lost your soulmate.

Here’s the email, shared with the parent’s permission:

“We just got back from Boulder Family Weekend. Leah is doing great and I think she is very glad she is at Boulder. There is so much to do, the facilities are gorgeous, not to mention the views. The first two weeks she hiked to a lake in the nearby snow-dappled mountains and took an overnight field trip with one of her classes to a mountain retreat. None of that would have been possible at her original first choice school in California. She gets along with her suitemates, has made a lot of friends on her floor (one of them bakes in the dorm kitchen and brings everyone muffins), and is playing fall ball with the club lacrosse team. She went to a football game in Denver with the guys in her hall. She placed out of math, science, and language and she’s helping her friends with calculus and physics. So Collegewise is right. Once you get to the school that wants you, the others just fade away.”

“The right college is the last, best chance for masses of teenagers to find themselves in a situation where they have no choice but to grow. And fast. The editor at the Harvard Lampoon experiences this. I felt it when I co-ran a large student-run business. The advanced physics major discovers this on her first day at the high-energy lab, working on a problem no one has ever solved before. That’s the reason to spend the time and spend the money and hang out on campus: so you can find yourself in a dark alley with nowhere to go but forward.”

Imagine you were told today that you (or for parents, your kid) would never be able to go to college. That opportunity is gone, and it is never coming back. You’ll never move into a dorm. You’ll never get to choose your classes or your major. You’ll never get to spend those four years learning, growing, discovering your talents and having fun. College memories? You won’t be creating any. College degree? You won’t be getting one. So your plans for the future will probably need to change. After high school, that’s it. Best of luck to you.

Now, imagine a college offered you a chance to attend. But the school, while respectable, isn’t prestigious.

Would you be any less thankful?

And the bigger question when you come back to reality—why can’t you start being thankful for that opportunity today?

Genipher in our Mission Viejo, California office shared this clip from Katie Couric’s show. The segment is about paying for college, but don’t miss what Couric (who was denied admission to her first choice college, Smith) has to say about name brand colleges at about 2 minutes into the video.

Prestigious colleges aren’t necessarily better schools. That’s an over-arching theme of my blog and of our work at Collegewise. It’s why we encourage students to work hard to give themselves as many college options as possible, but not to define their success based on whether or not a highly-seletive college says yes. What students do in college is much more important than the name of the school where they do it.

There’s plenty of anxiety in the U.S. over getting into a top college. But a new Gallup poll suggests that, later in life, it doesn’t matter nearly as much as we think. In fact, when you ask college graduates whether they’re ‘engaged’ with their work or ‘thriving’ in all aspects of their lives, their responses don’t vary one bit whether they went to a prestigious college or not.”

Inside Higher Ed reported that according to a recent Gallup survey, only 9% of business leaders rank where an applicant went to college as “very important” during the hiring process. But 84% agreed that an applicant’s knowledge and applied skills in the field were “very important."

What you do in college is more important than where you do it. Here’s a past post on how to have a remarkable college career (regardless of where you have it).

I write here often that what you do in college will be much more important than where you go. And Jay Mathews of the Washington Post has been leading that charge since 1999 when he wrote Harvard Schmarvard, and in more recent articles like this one.

None of us is saying that you shouldn't work hard or that you shouldn't care a lot about your college future. We're saying that good effort combined with good character means more than the name of any college on your degree.